The 107-Day Pipeline — Foreign Dark Money, Chinese Propaganda, and a Federal Bill to Freeze U.S. AI.
The report. The Bitcoin Policy Institute (Sam Lyman, Head of Research) published “Foreign Influence in the Campaign against American AI” on May 18, 2026 — identifying three foreign-funded vectors (Singham, Wyss, Parker / Oak Foundation) totaling roughly $2 billion flowing into U.S. advocacy infrastructure that has organized against domestic data-center buildout.
Singham vector. Tech founder Neville Roy Singham (sold Thoughtworks to Apax Partners for $785M in 2017, relocated to Shanghai) funded a network of U.S. 501(c)(3) entities — People’s Forum, Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, BreakThrough News, CodePink (co-founded by Singham’s wife Jodie Evans), Peoples Dispatch — with roughly $278 million through a Goldman Sachs donor-advised fund (terminated early 2024). The NYT’s August 2023 investigation by Mara Hvistendahl and David A. Fahrenthold established the original pipeline; the BPI report extends it specifically to data-center opposition.
The 107-day legislative path. December 8, 2025: Food and Water Watch coalition letter (230 signatories) demands a federal data-center moratorium. March 25, 2026 (107 days later): Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) introduce the AI Data Center Moratorium Act (S. 4214).
Federal probe underway. DHS Sec. Markwayne Mullin announced in May 2026 that Homeland Security, War Department (Sec. Pete Hegseth), Treasury (Sec. Scott Bessent), Justice, and the intelligence community are running a coordinated probe of the network. Ways & Means Chair Jason Smith (R-MO) issued formal letters to People’s Forum, BreakThrough News, and Tricontinental; compliance deadline was May 18, 2026 — the day the BPI report dropped. House Select Committee on the CCP Chair John Moolenaar (R-MI) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) have demanded FARA-registration determination.
The asymmetry. While the Singham-network outlets tell American audiences data centers are environmentally and democratically dangerous, China subsidizes up to 50% of energy costs for its own AI data centers. The BPI report frames the campaign as a coordinated effort to freeze U.S. AI infrastructure while China accelerates its own.
Democratic dissenters. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) called the moratorium bill “idiocy” on national-security grounds. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA): “China First. The emerging chassis of AI must be built by America.”
A 17-minute report published Monday by the Bitcoin Policy Institute documents what its author, BPI Head of Research Sam Lyman, calls a coordinated multi-year influence operation: roughly $2 billionfrom three foreign-tied charitable vehicles (the Singham network, the Wyss network, the Parker / Oak Foundation network) flowing into U.S. nonprofit advocacy infrastructure that has, in the past eighteen months, organized a public campaign against domestic data-center construction culminating in a federal bill — the AI Data Center Moratorium Act, S. 4214 — introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on March 25, 2026.
The Singham network is the most documented of the three. The August 2023 NYT investigation by Mara Hvistendahl and David A. Fahrenthold established that Neville Roy Singham— the wealthy tech founder who sold his consultancy Thoughtworks to Apax Partners for $785 million in 2017 and relocated to Shanghai — had moved approximately $275 million through shell companies and a Goldman Sachs donor-advised fund into six U.S. nonprofits aligned with pro-CCP narratives. The BPI report updates that figure (~$278M), identifies the network’s direct overlap with anti-data-center activism (CodePink, Tricontinental, AI Now Institute, MediaJustice), and traces the legislative-on-ramp path from a December 8, 2025 coalition letter to the March 25, 2026 Sanders/AOC moratorium bill.
Federal accountability machinery is now engaged across multiple cabinet departments. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin announced in early May that DHS, the War Department under Secretary Pete Hegseth (R), Treasury under Secretary Scott Bessent (R), Justice under AG Pam Bondi (R), and the U.S. intelligence community are running a coordinated probe into the Singham network. House Ways & Means Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO)set a May 18, 2026 compliance deadline for People’s Forum, BreakThrough News, and Tricontinental Institute — the same day the BPI report dropped. Singham has publicly denied being a CCP agent: “I categorically deny and repudiate any suggestion that I am a member of, work for, take orders from, or follow instructions of any political party or government.”
- Vector 1 — Singham (Shanghai-based, ~$278M): Tech founder Neville Roy Singham. Funds People’s Forum, Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, Peoples Dispatch, BreakThrough News, CodePink (co-founded by Singham’s wife Jodie Evans), and the “No Cold War” coalition. Conduit: shell companies + Goldman Sachs donor-advised fund (terminated 2024). India’s Delhi Police chargesheet in the NewsClick case named the Chinese government as the network’s “ultimate paymaster.”
- Vector 2 — Wyss (Swiss, ~$700M): Hansjörg Wyss, Swiss billionaire who has never been an American citizen, directs the Wyss Foundation (501(c)(3)) and the Berger Action Fund (501(c)(4)). Approximately $700M directed into the U.S. nonprofit sector, including $278M to Sixteen Thirty Fund and a $1.255M (2024) grant to Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund.
- Vector 3 — Parker / Oak Foundation (British / Geneva, $750M+): Alan Parker, the British billionaire who made ~$840M from LVMH’s 1997 DFS Group takeover and relocated to Geneva. Oak Foundation has given $750M+ to U.S. groups through 2024. Son Kristian Parker runs Oak’s environmental program and sits on the ClimateWorks board.
- Fiscal-sponsor layer: Arabella Advisors’ New Venture Fund and Climate and Clean Energy Equity Fund act as conduits to the data-center-opposition signatories.
- American Energy Institute (April 2026): separately calculated $39 million flowing to 12 specific anti-data-center organizations from foreign donors.
- December 8, 2025: Food and Water Watch organizes a 230-signatory coalition letter demanding a federal data-center moratorium. Signatories include the Singham-network outlets (CodePink, MediaJustice, AI Now Institute) plus Arabella-Advisors-sponsored fiscal-sponsor projects.
- December 2025: AI Now Institute publishes the “North Star Data Center Policy Toolkit” with explicit aim to “use local and state policy to stop rampant AI data center expansion.”
- January 2026: CodePink publishes “The War Intervention: AI, Data Centers, and the Environment” explicitly framing data centers as “the new Cold War on China” targets (Meta Hyperion, Louisiana; Meta Cheyenne, Wyoming).
- January 2026: MediaJustice publishes “The People Say No: Resisting Data Centers Toolkit.”
- March 27, 2026: Tricontinental publishes “Breaking the Stranglehold: How China Is Shattering US Technological Hegemony.”
- March 25, 2026 (107 days after the coalition letter): Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) introduce the AI Data Center Moratorium Act (S. 4214).
- April 24, 2026: Maine Gov. Janet Mills (D) vetoes the state’s 18-month data-center freeze; override fails April 29.
- April 29, 2026: Sen. Sanders’s Capitol Hill event “The Existential Threat of AI” features panelists Zeng Yi (Beijing Institute of AI Safety & Governance) and Xue Lan (China State Council counselor).
- May 18, 2026: Bitcoin Policy Institute report drops. Ways & Means compliance deadline for People’s Forum / BreakThrough News / Tricontinental.
The single sharpest editorial finding in the BPI report is the asymmetry: while the Singham-network outlets tell American audiences that AI data centers are environmentally catastrophic, democratically illegitimate, and complicit in a “new Cold War,” China subsidizes up to 50% of energy costsfor its own AI data centers and is accelerating domestic AI-infrastructure buildout aggressively. Tricontinental’s March 2026 report — published while the Sanders/AOC moratorium bill was being drafted — explicitly frames U.S. AI buildout as “technological hegemony” that China is “shattering.”
If the moratorium passes, the practical result is a freeze on U.S. data-center construction at exactly the moment U.S. AI labs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta, xAI) need physical compute to keep pace with Chinese state-subsidized competitors. Whether that is a coincidence or a feature of the campaign’s design is the question the federal probe will, in some form, eventually answer.
- DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin (R) — announced the multi-agency probe.
- House Ways & Means Chair Jason Smith (R-MO) — led the 501(c)(3) inquiry letters.
- House Select CCP Committee Chair John Moolenaar (R-MI) — joint Bessent/IRS letter.
- Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) — FARA-determination demands.
- Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) — called the moratorium bill “idiocy.” National-security framing.
- Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) — called the bill “China First. The emerging chassis of AI must be built by America.”
- Pushing the bill: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Gov. Janet Mills (D-ME) in alignment with the state-level moratorium (until her veto). The Singham-network outlets (CodePink, Tricontinental, etc.) are the organizational engine.
- Singham response: categorical denial of CCP-agent allegations. The May 18 BPI report does not allege he is one; it documents the funding pipeline and surfaces the federal probe.
- We do not claim Neville Roy Singham is a Chinese-government agent. He has publicly denied that, and the federal FARA-determination process has not concluded.
- We do not claim every signatory of the December 8, 2025 coalition letter knowingly took foreign money. Coalition signatories often join on the strength of a single issue without auditing each other’s donor lists.
- We do not claim Sanders or AOC are foreign-influence operatives. We claim they are the named introducers of a bill whose advocacy pipeline the BPI report traces to documented foreign-tied funders.
- We do not link the Memphis xAI fight or the Loudoun County zoning fight to the Singham network. Those are separate local disputes with their own organizational provenance.
- We do quote the named outlets’ verbatim characterizations of U.S. AI infrastructure as “the new Cold War on China.” That framing is theirs, on the record, in their own publications.
The People's Forum is a likely CCP-funded propaganda arm operating under tax-exempt status. The Ways & Means Committee, the Select Committee on the CCP, and the Oversight Committee are demanding documents. The compliance deadline is May 18, 2026. The American people deserve to know who is funding the campaigns against our energy infrastructure and our AI competitiveness.
Today the Select Committee on the CCP and Ways & Means jointly wrote to Treasury Sec. Bessent and the IRS demanding a tax-exempt-status review of the Singham-network entities. American tax-exempt status should not be a vehicle for foreign-government propaganda. The pattern documented here — Shanghai-based funder, U.S. 501(c)(3)s, Chinese-government-aligned messaging — is a FARA-determination question, and it is overdue.
China is trying to STOP American AI. They want to freeze our data centers while they BUILD THEIRS. The Singham network — Shanghai-funded U.S. nonprofits — is the spear tip. Bernie Sanders and AOC are carrying their water with this MORATORIUM bill. AMERICA WILL BUILD. AMERICA WILL WIN. We will not surrender our AI leadership to the CCP through their American front groups. DHS Sec. Mullin, AG Bondi, and Treasury Sec. Bessent are on it.
Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post
Paraphrase. The DHS / War / Treasury / DOJ multi-agency probe is on the record per Sec. Mullin's May 2026 statement; the framing above reflects the administration's standing China-competitiveness posture.
Homeland Security, the War Department, Treasury, Justice, and the intelligence community are running a coordinated probe of the Singham network and its U.S. nonprofit affiliates. American tax-exempt status is a privilege, not a vehicle for foreign-government influence operations against American energy and AI infrastructure. The investigation will follow the evidence.
Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post
Paraphrase. Sec. Mullin's on-the-record May 2026 statement confirming the multi-agency probe is the source; verbatim coverage via Fox News.